Nominated by
Maxine Jakubke
December 14, 2013
This one person company invested heavily in both energy, time and finances to mount an international campaign around the need to warn about the dangers of tobacco use. With her publication of the first ever smoke-free version of the most famous poem in the English language - Twas The Night Before Christmas. The critics were fast and furious but the project garnered international media attention and achieved a significant level of discussion on this topic. The book won seven book awards and continues to be applauded by parents and educators who want to best protect this next generation from the advances of the 21st. century's tobacco epidemic.An epidemic that will claim the lives of one billion people and continues to be the number cause of premature death both in the developed and developing world. The edit was done due to research that made the US government outlaw cartoon characters as smoking due to the studied and reported influence such imagery has on future normalization and sympathy to tobacco products. The edit was also done due to research out of the Department of Health in the UK https://www.gov.uk/government/news/all-children-really-want-this-christmas-is-their-parents-to-quit-smoking--2
The book was condemned by the American Library Assocation and the publisher Pamela McColl was called a "literary vandal" on national CBC Radio and on NPR. She continued on and speaks out to groups and in the media on the need to address the lack of tobacco prevention funding.
She is a one person company and she is doing her part to make a difference to a severe threat to the world health care systems.